A first station may be configured to communicate with a second station. For example, the first station may use a transceiver to transmit and receive data from the second station through a wireless communications network. In another example, the first and second stations may be connected via a wired network (e.g., Ethernet) or a combination of wired and wireless networks. The first and second stations may use the network to communicate using a variety of different applications. For example, the first station may be a transmitting station while the second station may be a receiving station for a text message. Depending on the network being utilized, the text message may be transmitted in a respective manner. For example, when a data network is used, the text message may be transmitted in its entirety using a data encoding scheme. In another example, when a cellular network is used, the text message may be transmitted as a short messaging service (SMS) message.
When the text message is transmitted as a SMS message, the text of the message may be encoded using a variety of encoding schemes. In a first example, a 7-bit encoding scheme may be used which includes a defined alphabet including a set of characters as defined by the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). The 7-bit encoding scheme allows for a maximum of 160 characters to be included in one text message. In a second example, an 8-bit encoding scheme may be used which includes a defined data alphabet. The 8-bit encoding scheme allows for a maximum of 140 characters to be included in one text message. In a third example, a 16-bit encoding scheme may be used which includes a 2-byte Universal Character Set (UCS-2). The 16-bit encoding scheme allows for a maximum of 70 characters to be included in one text message.
Therefore, when a user of the transmitting station enters characters for a text message, a messaging application determines whether the text message may be transmitted as a single SMS message or as a plurality of concatenated SMS messages (which constitutes the entire text message). That is, the text message being sent via SMS may require concatenation depending on the encoding scheme used based upon the entered characters. For example, a special character of UCS-2 uses the 16-bit encoding scheme. In another example, a standard character of the GSM alphabet uses the 7-bit encoding scheme. The concatenation process for text messages transmitted using SMS uses a fixed encoding scheme. For example, when only the GSM alphabet is required, the entire text message is encoded with the 7-bit encoding scheme. In another example, when the 16-bit encoding scheme is required, this is used to encode the entire text message. However, this may result in unnecessarily generating additional concatenated messages.